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Solidarity Labor Quotes
May 23, 2008

Solidarity Labor Quotes

Solidarity Labor Quotes!





“Your silence will not protect you” Audre Lorde

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow

We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. Benjamin Franklin, July 4, 1776 Remark to John Hancock at the signing of the Declaration of Independence

When I rise it will be with the ranks and not from the ranks. Eugene V. Debs

We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class. I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V. Debs, Founder of the American Railway Union



In Unity there is strength

We can move mountains when we’re united and enjoy life --Without unity we are victims. Stay united. Bill Bailey, 1994

An injury to one is the concern of all! Knights of Labor slogan

If nobody quits until I do, there will be no quitting! UMWA organizer John R. Lawson, in 1915 after being sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in a frame-up trial

My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: “We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.” Mother Jones, 1902 Speaking before the convention of the UMWA, Indianapolis, IN

Then join in hand brave Americans all, By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall. John Dickinson From The Liberty Song

It
is a great mistake for any class of laborers to isolate itself and thus weaken the bond of brotherhood between those on whom the burdens and hardship of labor (fall). The fortunate ones of the Earth, who are abundant in land and money and know nothing of the anxious care and pinching poverty of the laboring classes, may be indifferent to the appeal to justice at this point, but the laboring classes cannot afford to be indifferent. What labor everywhere wants, what it ought to have, and will someday demand and receive, is an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. As the laborer becomes more intelligent he will develop what capital he already possesses --that is the power to organize and combine for its own protection. Frederick Douglass

An injury to one is the concern of all. Slogan of The Knights of Labor, circa 1880’s

Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental please for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results. Eugene V. Debs



The boss don’t listen when one guy squawks! But he’s gotta listen when the union talks. An old song

Universal economic evils
afflicting the working class can be eradicated only by a universal working-class movement. Such a movement of the working class is impossible while separate craft and wage agreements are made favoring the employer against other crafts in the same industry, and while energies are wasted in fruitless jurisdictional struggles which serve only to further the personal aggrandizement of union officials. From the 1905 Call to the Founding convention of the Industrial Workers of/he World.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow

El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.
The people united will never be defeated

A single bracelet does not jingle Congo proverb

United jaws crush the bone Kigezi proverb, southwest Uganda

Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won’t eat you. proverb from Madagascar

The workers have nothing to lose in this but their chains. They have the world to gain. Workers of the world unite! Karl Marx

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Am I my brother’s keeper’? [That frequently asked question] has never been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself. It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live. Then, as Whitman said, you can take out your soul; you can commune with yourself; you can take a comrade by the hand and you can look into his soul and in that holy communion you live. And if you don’t know what that is, or if you are not at least on the edge of it, it is denied you even to look into the Promised Land. Eugene V. Debs From a speech given at the founding of the Federal Council of Churches in Girard, Kansas, 1908

The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one of uniting all working people of all nations, tongues and kindreds. From the speeches of Abraham Lincoln

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because lwasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor (1892-1984)

In spite of petty national lines, in spite of international division lines, the workers of the world over are coming together on the ground of their common working class interest, without regard to race, color, creed or flag, and they are coming together because the earth and all the earth holds, and all its possibilities are theirs. Father Thomas Hagerty, speaking at the Founding Convention of the I.W.W., 1905



Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, For the union makes us strong

When the union’s inspiration through worker’s blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun; Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might? is there anything left to us but to organize and fight? For the union makes us strong

It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade, Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid; Now we stand outcast and starving ‘mid the wonders we have made, But the union makes us strong

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel will turn; We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn That the union makes us strong

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousandfold; We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, For the union makes us strong. “Solidarity,” Words by Ralph Chaplin

…And I further promise to help and assist all brothers in adversity, and to have all mine workers join the union, that we may be able to enjoy the fruits of our labor; that I will never knowingly wrong a brother or see him wronged, if I can prevent it. From the Obligation of Fidelity pledge taken by each member upon joining the United Mine Workers of America. Written in or around 1912.

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I. Karl Liebknecht, from a speech delivered in 1907

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Local 406 PPPWU
246 Conklin Street, 2nd Floor
Farmingdale, New York 11735-2657
  516-293-6868

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